Infrastructure of the Spatial Information in the European Community (INSPIRE) Based on Examples of Italy and Poland

Abstract

Binding and planned community regulations regarding INSPIRE and other documents resulting from work on INSPIRE have forced the member countries to implement new or updated regulations. The purpose of creating the spatial information infrastructure was to unify the exchange of geographical data at the national and international levels, create transparent and favorable conditions for the use of geographical data, facilitate decision-making and develop business activity, and, as a consequence, facilitate the creation of the INSPIRE geoportal by the European Research Center (JRC) of the European Commission, which aims be the central hub of the European spatial information infrastructure. Land management systems use layers from geoportals and are also a data source because their task is to develop sustainable space development. The article presents the rules for implementing EU directives in Poland and Italy at various levels of detail and examines access to data and spatial information infrastructure. A comparative analysis of geoportals was performed in terms of the functionality and availability of free data (types of data) at national and local levels in terms of verification of compliance with the Ubiquitous Public Access Context Information Model (UPA) defined by the International Organization for Standardization (ISO) 19100. National geoportals (Polish Geoportal 2 and the Italian-Geoportale Nazionale) and Municipal Spatial Information Systems from the cities of Olsztyn and Bari were compared.